John Howell wrote:
At 9:39 PM -0500 5/9/10, Noel Stoutenburg wrote:
Kim Patrick Clow wrote:
I'm not exactly sure what the expression under the first violin means
"ottava bassa" or ottava basso." Or how this would impact performance.
This is the first time I've encountered this phrase in Graupner's music.
I'm with Dennis as far as the top part dropping in parallel with the
lower two, but I don't see it as a manuscript error, but rather as an
example of using symbols to keep the music as much as practicable
within the bounds of the staff. The other two sounding parts drop from
the upper portion of their respective staves, to the lower portion,
but if the top does that as well, many of the notes in the top
sounding part will be below the staff; using the ottava bassa symbol
is a way to place the music without confusing the user which staff the
music is associated with. I expect it's impact upon performance would
be that the player encountering it would expect to play (or hear the
music played, if this is is a conductor's score) an octave lower than
written.
On the contrary, I wouldn't expect the player to see it at all, since
the copyist should have taken care to copy it correctly into the part.
I've used LOTS of shorthand in some of my scores written under deadline,
but always copied the parts accurately.
Kim, do you have parts to compare, or just the score?
And in terms of performance practice (or actually composing practice),
in the baroque if a composer had felt a compulsion to avoid ALL ledger
lines, he simply would have changed clefs, since all musicians were
expected to be fluent in the 9 movable clefs. Bach certainly was! But I
doubt that such a consideration would have occurred to an 18th century
musician, since it was unusual for clefs to change in the parts with the
exception of viola da gamba parts that might jump from alto to bass clef
if the music so jumped. Violin parts commonly used treble clef and used
ledger lines both above and below the staff.
I've recently completed modern editions of 5 concertos for flauto
traverso and strings by the German/Danish composer Johann Adolf Scheibe
(http://icking-music-archive.org/ByComposer/Scheibe.php), a generation
younger than Graupner. The concertos were published in print by the
composer; but only 18th century manuscript copies of the part books,
preserved at the Royal Library, Copenhagen, exist today.
My edition is based on facsimiles of these part books. In one of the
concertos, 'Concerto ex D'
(http://icking-music-archive.org/scores/scheibe/ConcD/ConcD.pdf), the
middle Siciliano movement has the upper string parts (vl1, vl2, vla)
frequently changing to bass clef where all strings go unisono. An
interesting aspect of this is that some of these bass clef phrases are
partly out the range of the instrument!
There are links to the manuscript facsimiles in WIMA's Scheibe page
John
--
Christian Mondrup, Archive Editor
WIMA: Werner Icking Music Archive
http://icking-music-archive.org/
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